Thanks to all those who participated in the experiment we ran a few months back using the audio from a real legal case to test the effects of priming on the interpretation of a disputed utterance - and to all those who circulated the link and helped us reach 190 participants from a wide range of demographic groups.

The results have now been processed and the article accepted for the next issue of International Journal of Speech Language and the Law. I am happy to send a pre-publication copy to anyone who needs one, though naturally this should not be cited or circulated until it has been officially published.

I have created a mini-version of the experiment (far shorter, and collecting no data), and also prepared a short summary of the main findings suitable for general consumption (especially, I hope, by lawyers).

Both of these are now available at the link below.

Feel free to use the mini-experiment for demonstration purposes, or if you did not do the expt yourself, to get a quick sense of what it was all about.

For those who just want a quick two-liner - the experiment found that around 30% of those in the group that received the incriminating prime 'heard' it after it was suggested to them, though virtually no-one in either group heard it before it was suggested. Around half of these 30% still 'heard' the suggested interpretation of the section of interest at the end of the experiment, after being advised that experts were agreed that interpretation was not valid.

Perhaps more surprisingly, in the group that did not receive the incriminating prime, 14% (i.e. statistically similar number) heard the suggested phrase at the end of the experiment even though they had only been exposed to it for the first time in the 'full story' - i.e. in the context of being told that all the experts had rejected the suggestion.

Further, there was a strong correlation between hearing the incriminating phrase in the section of interest and finding the speaker 'guilty' - again, despite having been told in the 'full story' that the caller had been found not guilty and released from prison.

Finally - there was a strong correlation between participants stating at the very beginning of the expt, before receiving any information about sections of interest, allegations of murder or anything, that they did not trust the caller - and finding him guilty at the end.

Well - more than two lines, but there you have it.

Thanks again for your help with the experiment.

Cheers, Helen

PS For those who are interested in the case itself, I highly recommend Bronwen Innes' article in the current issue of IJSLL.